David Jason: Encyclopedia II - David Jason - Early career

David Jason - Early career

Jason started his television career in 1967, at the same time as Michael Palin in Do Not Adjust Your Set and appeared in variety shows in support of stars such as Dick Emery. He appeared, most notably, as a spoof super-hero Captain Fantastic, in Do Not Adjust Your Set. He was somewhat ahead of the Austin Powers and Johnny English film genre in an inventive TV series about an inept spy called The Secret Life of Edgar Briggs. Humphrey Barclay, who recruited Sir David to Do Not Adjust Your Set partly to offset the rather intellectual style of Idle, Jones and Palin, admired David's masterful sense of timing. This was of course in an era when British performers such as Peter Cook, Marty Feldman, Tony Hancock, Benny Hill and Kenneth Horne were all regularly demonstrating superb timing skills to humorous effect. His eye-catching performances would also attract the attention of Ronnie Barker, who would become a mentor to Jason in the next era of his career.

Jason was recruited to play Dithers, the hundred-year old gardener to Barker and co-worker of a maid played by Josephine Tewson, in Hark At Barker, then Blanco in Porridge, a prison-based comedy also starring Barker, then junior employee Granville in Open All Hours, starring Barker as the miserly proprietor of a general store. He also took the lead role in ITV sitcom A Sharp Intake Of Breath.

In the 1970s he did some work for radio, appearing in Week Ending (regularly satirising such figures as then UK Foreign Secretary Dr David Owen), and was the original "B Ark Captain" in the sixth episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Early career", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki